Videogame Influences!

[EATherrian]

In oblivion, if my acrobatics is high enough, I can jump up to the platform and take the sword. then walk out of the dungeon



In oblivion, the guards will run up to the monsters and fight them. I can even walk away at that point and let them take care of it.

Heck, in Oblivion the guards even attack each other, which is great fun to watch.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In order for something to feel like a videogame, it must involve sitting down in front of a TV and playing a videogame. Other than that, there is no such thing as a "videogame feel".

This is actually very, very wrong.

The biggest difference between a videogame and a tabletop RPG is verisimilitude.

This isn't just tossing off buzzwords. Videogames largely get a pass on a lot of believability because they show you pretty pictures. It's OK if you can't go to the Forest of Doom yet, if you're railroaded into a plot, if you can't say "no," if you "farm" monsters, if you can't die...all of this is totally acceptable in a CRPG...

...but all of it finds harder acceptance in a Tabletop RPG.

You can forgive CRPG designers for not being able to program in every possible human iteration.

It's more difficult to forgive a DM (or ruleset) who tells you "no, you can't do that," when clearly, it's *possible*.

This reaches into a few other areas -- videogames are comfortable with a high level of abstraction, a lot of subsystems....tabletop games are not. Videogames work good with complex formula for hiding damage and randomness, tabletop games are better when the maths are simple. Crafting and farming work well in videogames, it's harder to get them to work in tabletop games...It's not bad to have a game influenced by videogames per se. That'll depend upon the taste. But it is a definite flavor.

One thing that 4e does, for instance, that is a lot like a videogame is make positioning of minis very important. Much like moving sprites around on a grid, it's a level of abstraction that might help resolve some combats a bit faster, but it isn't very realistic.

FFZ, of course, takes that idea even further and does the whole combat system abstract, which is even MORE like a videogame.

It is true that a lot of videogames try to reach the same level of open-endedness that D&D and games like it have, but there is always a limit, somewhere, in hardware and software. There's no real limit to the DM except maybe involving heavy maths.

 

[delericho]

So I read a lot of people who find games being influenced by videogames to be objectionable. I don't understand this attitude... I play videogames, and find there are loads of ideas I can yoink for my D&D games...

I don't have an issue with D&D copying things from videogames, MMORPGs, or even Magic if those things make for a better game. However, there are key differences between the media, and what works well for one may not work well for another. Perhaps more importantly, if D&D were to attempt to compete with videogames by trying to emulate the strengths of videogames, it would be an effort doomed to failure. If D&D really were to become "WoW in tabletop format", it would die out pretty quick.

The strengths of D&D, as I see them, are the ability of a naturally intelligent (as opposed to artificially intelligent) DM to improvise - to improvise encounters on the fly, to allow the PCs to "go anywhere", to handle all the crazy things that players come up with, to improvise NPC interactions and tactics, and so forth. That's the one thing that a human DM can do that an AI simply cannot, at least for now.

So, where the designers of D&D place rules in place to limit creativity and options, they do the game a major disservice. And I believe that there have been some steps in this direction.

It began with "Player's Option: Combat and Tactics", I believe, which focussed a lot more on specific combat locations and movement than had been the case certainly since I started gaming (though perhaps less than AD&D 1, or Chainmail). It then continued with 3e, and the 'tactical mini-game' that was combat. 3.5e then took things further with the reliance on minis. And 4e has taken it further still, to the point where I simply would not attempt to run 4e without minis. (Doing so in 3.5e wasn't ever very satisfying, either, but it did at least feel possible.)

The aspec to this is the use of 'powers' to limit options. In 3e, the intent was that characters could disarm, trip, or sunder whether they had the appropriate feat or not. The reality, though, was that the existence of these feats (or perhaps just their implementation) meant that characters who didn't have these feats wouldn't attempt those actions. And, since there was 'a rule for everything', options were constrained into purely those things that the rules said you could do. The intent may have been otherwise, but 3e was a lot less freeform in actual play than was 2nd Edition, despite having much better support for combat manoeuvers. And, in 4e, things seem to have taken a distinct step further in this direction. Sure, applying page 42 should allow you to come up with and implement all sorts of crazy actions... but the reality is that a great many characters spam the same five actions over and over again.

The real reason this is a problem (for me) is that the way I play videogames (including videogame versions of D&D) is distinctly different from the way I play D&D, and is a notably less enjoyable experience. Bluntly, I'm not playing a character for the sake of playing that character, I'm moving around a playing piece for the purpose of winning the game. I min-max like crazy, I pay scant attention to anything that isn't combat, and I don't give a moment's thought to anything bad that happens to my character - a few seconds to reload a saved game, and I'm back in action.

And that's not what I want from D&D. If that is what it offers me, then I'll play the videogame instead. It has better graphics, requires much less effort, and costs less too (since I need a PC anyway).

 

[AllisterH]

Bad videogame-ness:Solos Save bonus.

Numerous 'Upgraded' Monsters with little descriptive difference beyond a palate swap and an energy type.

Er, thats a horrendous example. One of the issues with 4e I find is that applying a condiition to even a solo is NOT that difficult. It wouldn't be that bad xcept certain conditions are game-over (I'm looking at you STUN).

What you're referring to are monsters that are just plain ass immune or have such high resistances that they practically are...

 

[Scribble]

This is exactly the point I am making. I never claimed that roles were an original idea. But they were formalized, named, and became explicit elements of game design within the context of MMOs. And thus people associate them, fairly or unfairly, with MMOs.

Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, but he popularized it, so it's his name that's associated with it.

Which in my eyes is fine, and kind of exactly what I'm talking about.

The designers of MMOs looked at how people were using class based systems, and realized that clearly designing each class towards what it's overall role seemed to be worked. It made for a better play experience.

Thats a design idea that's usefull not only to videogames, but to all games using a class based system. Why ignore it?

 

[Wootz]

I don't see what's wrong with a videogame inspired mission so long as it works. Take mirror's edge. In one of the levels you find youself leaping across rooftops to chase down a guy (not throwing out spoilers, just in case) After playing this I thought, "this would make an awesome skill challenge" and sure enough, something very similar is mentioned in the DMG. However, I can understand the concern of a certain scenario feeling too much like a videogame (you can only program a videogame to allow the player to do so much) but I think in the hands of a good DM, who cares? As long as the influences don't sink in so much they bring about metagaming.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is actually very, very wrong.


One thing that 4e does, for instance, that is a lot like a videogame is make positioning of minis very important. Much like moving sprites around on a grid, it's a level of abstraction that might help resolve some combats a bit faster, but it isn't very realistic.

This is interesting because to me this is the least videogamey aspect of the game and more a return to its wargaming roots in Chainmail. Not that i ever played chainmail but I have wargames a lot.

My experience of video game is that position does not matter much except for close or far. If you are not a tank in a video game then you want to be as far from the enemy brutes as you can and direction is not relevant except that if you are too far away from your allies and some wandering monsters join to fray or you trigger the enemy to come after you then you are screwed. Also most video games i have played are simultenous movement.

Now D&D 3 and 4 are round based and positioning is important. In 4e push and pull effects are very important and the players have a level of control that could not be implemented in simultaneous realtime play (unless the player and a couple of extra thumbs and parallel prosessing brain )

 

[Umbran]

Again I'd say it's both.

You would. Many others would not.

Honestly, I don't even get that "feel" argument.

In order for something to feel like a videogame, it must involve sitting down in front of a TV and playing a videogame. Other than that, there is no such thing as a "videogame feel".

For you, there is no such thing, perhaps.

It is the height of hubris to say that the things that you feel are the only things to be felt. Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist to be gotten. You may legitimately be blind to what they find to be a major problem, and that's okay. But just as a colorblind person should not claim that "red" does not exist, you should not claim this "feel" does not exist.

That is the first and foremost thing that people should learn if they ever want "edition wars" to end - the other people are not wrong. They just care about different things than you do.

If folks could get that into their heads, they would have gained some real wisdom.

 

[Scribble]

You would. Many others would not.

Oh I know this. I have no doubt in my mind that others might dissagree with me. I'm just looking for discussion as to why that's all.

 

[Miyaa]

So far my 4e group has done two of them: the "Fun with False Accusations of Pederasty" Challenge, and the "Pig Parade" Challenge (which included a "passion play" enacted with improvised puppets --we used party members with ropes attached-- revolving around a possible holy giant feral pig).

Needless to say, neither of these Skill Challenges resembled a video game.

Whatever your group was on, I want some of it.

The problem that I see with D&D taking on videogame elements isn't so much that it's a bad thing gameplay wise, but rather is that going to be enough to lure casual gamers who would be more inclined to play something like WoW to play something like this? If Wizards decided to streamline their game by incorporating videogame elements solely so that it would appeal to a wider audience, then I'm not sure if that by itself will work.

Now, if they changed it because people who play videogames prefer to see what is going on physically instead of relying on their own imagination and the DM to fill out what exactly is going on, and that they wouldn't mind having realistic looking miniatures instead of using markers to indicate where their characters are, that is something entirely different. Again, though, it's sort of the case where you can lure someone new to play because it reminds them of the latest mmorpg de jour they're playing, but whether it will be enough to get them to play it even outside of their normal playing hours on the computer is something else entirely.